The Canadian commander of a proposed international force
in eastern Zaire said that troops were still needed,
but it would take until tomorrow at least to develop
military aid options. Lieutenant General Maurice Baril
said officials from 35 countries and international
organizations meeting in Stuttgart today had disagreed
about the number of refugees in need and that he had
established a "multi-national assessment group"
to try to reach agreement.

Ethiopia has threatened to pull out of the force unless
the mandate is expanded to allow the separation of
Hutu militants from refugees. "The UN Security
Council should revise its decision that confines the
mission of the proposed multi-national intervention
force to humanitarian work only," Prime Minister
Meles Zenawi said yesterday. Kenya's President Moi
said a force should only be deployed in the Great Lakes
region with the consent of both Zaire and Rwanda.

An international meeting tomorrow in Geneva will focus
on humanitarian aspects of the refugee situation, with
priority going to the resettlement of Rwandan refugees,
AFP said. However, participants in the meeting, to
be chaired by Canadian International Cooperation Minister
Don Boudria, also want the spotlight to fall on hundreds
of thousands of refugees still in Zaire. The talks
are expected to bring together ministers and high ranking
officials from Canada, the USA, Europe, Japan and Australia.
Senior UN and other aid officials will also attend.

The Rwandan government issued a statement yesterday
saying that numbers given by aid agencies of Rwandan
refugees remaining in eastern Zaire "are totally
incorrect and misleading". In a meeting yesterday
called by the Rwandan Minister of Rehabilitation and
Social Integration, the Rwandan government based its
assessment on the fact that neither the UNHCR nor the
Government of Rwanda had done a physical count of returnees
following last week's exodus from eastern Zaire, and
that all the camps in North Kivu were empty. The government
also asserted that interviews with returnees indicated
that they included refugees arriving from Bukavu, who
had moved northward as the result of the civil war
in South Kivu. Refugees who had moved west of Bukavu,
according to the government "could be either Barundis,
Zaireans or Rwandese." The government also claimed
that there were "daily crossings of refugees from
the Bukavu area through the Cyangugu border post and
other crossings in the south". The statement appealed
to the aid agencies to provide "the necessary
assistance to the entire affected population in eastern
Zaire". The meeting was attended by Ministers
of Health, Foreign Affairs, political advisor to the
Vice President and Minister of Defence, and representatives
of UNDP, UNHCR, UNICEF, WFP and ICRC.

US Ambassador to Rwanda Robert Gribben said in a BBC
interview yesterday that most of the refugees still
in Zaire were either displaced Zaireans or Burundians,
and that numbers of Rwandan refugees were nothing like
those put forward by the aid agencies. He said that
groups of refugees remaining in eastern Zaire "appear
to be tens to twenties of thousands rather than in
vast numbers". In response, Refugees International
(RI) demanded the recall of the ambassador, saying
he was downplaying the seriousness of the refugee crisis
in eastern Zaire just before the Stuttgart military
meeting today. Lionel Rosenblatt, President of the
Washington-based RI told the BBC from Bukavu that the
situation was still critical and that international
intervention was a necessary decision: "We have
one of the worst refugees crises of modern times. One
need not quibble over numbers, but we know there are
hundreds of thousands of people formerly supported
by all of us as wards of the international community
who've gone missing and are without food or water now
for three weeks".

CNN journalist Catherine Bond reported yesterday, from
near Sake, that local people said refugees fleeing
Mugunga were killed by rebel soldiers. Newsweek (US)
also reported accounts by eye-witnesses that refugees
were killed by both the Hutu militants and the rebel
forces, when Mugunga camp dispersed.

Renewed fighting was reported near Sake yesterday between
rebels and Hutu gunmen. "We are receiving first-hand
reports of fighting around Minova and in the Masisi
hills above Sake," UNHCR's Filippo Grandi told
reporters in Goma. Refugees arriving in Goma from Sake
said there had been several clashes in the last few
days between rebels and Hutu militias.

UNHCR reported that 241 people had crossed at Cyangugu
yesterday, while on Wednesday 3,000 refugees from Kahindo
and Katale camps arrived at Mugunga en route to the
Rwandan border. The rebels allowed the use of one UNHCR
bus to transport vulnerable cases. Numbers issued by
UNHCR suggest the population of Gisenyi could increase
by nearly 30 percent and Ruhengeri and Kibuye by almost
20 percent if all the refugees believed to be in Zairean
camps return home. Initial reports also suggest a slight
increase in Rwandan returnees from Tanzania, but numbers
are not yet available, UNHCR said. An AFP report from
Kigali said some of the refugees arrived in the city
today after trudging over 150 kms from Gisenyi.

The International Committee of the Red Cross has announced
that thousands of Rwandan children lost in the mass
refugee return over the past week should be back in
their homes within 48 hours thanks to a "lightning
action" launched by ICRC in collaboration with
the Rwandan authorities. However, the Committee is
still concerned about the fate of possibly thousands
of unaccompanied children still languishing in Zaire.

Rebel "Radio of the People" in Bukavu, monitored
by BBC, yesterday announced the end of the ceasefire
announced unilaterally fifteen days ago. Rebel-run
radio said that ADFL commander, Colonel Andre Kissasse
Ngandu, had told a meeting attended by 10,000 people
in Goma that the cease-fire was intended to allow refugees
to return to Rwanda. Kissasse said now that a large
number of refugees had crossed the border, the immediate
aim of the Alliance was to continue occupying Zairean
regions, and eventually overthrow Mobutu's regime.
The radio claimed 1,500 young men from the Bukavu area
had joined the Alliance. Rebel radio also said that
opposition leader Etienne Tshisekedi - who met President
Mobutu yesterday for talks - was ready to work with
Alliance leader Laurent Kabila. The rebel radio station
appears to have replaced state-run Radio Bukavu. Recently,
the Zairean government appears to have up-graded its
transmitters in order to better serve provinces which
for long have been without good radio reception.

Etienne Tshisekedi today claimed he had been named prime
minister of a new government of national unity following
talks with President Mobutu in France yesterday. He
told Radio France Internationale the meeting had led
to a reconciliation, but a spokesman for Mobutu denied
the remarks. "The president yesterday received
him for more than an hour, and there was never any
question of political problems," spokesman Honore
Nghanda told RFI, adding it would be unconstitutional
for Mobutu to appoint a premier while he was out of
the country.

The Rwandan government has told international journalists
that there have been some arrests of returning former
Rwandan soldiers, but many other ex-FAR have been
allowed home and will be screened later. According
to a spokeswoman for the UN High Commissioner for Human
Rights, quoted by AFP today, 15 arrests have been reported
so far, but the number is expected to rise dramatically.
The spokeswoman, Marie Van Der Elst, said trials were
expected "soon" and were likely to be followed
by executions. One UN official told IRIN it was frustrating
and "of great concern" that there was so
little information about how re-settlement at commune
level was going. Donors are reportedly keen to put
money into Human Rights monitors, and 60 monitors are
due to arrive in Rwanda shortly.

UNHCR today said 300 Burundian refugees who returned
from eastern Zaire were massacred in a church in Cibitoke
province last month. UNHCR spokeswoman Christiane Berthiaume
said they returned voluntarily to Muramba on October
22 and spent the night in the church, where they were
killed. Berthiaume added that the identity of the killers
was not known. Burundi yesterday denied Amnesty International
claims that at least 400 returnees were killed by the
security forces in the church, and Prime Minister Pascal-Firmin
Ndimira today in Stockholm again issued a flat denial.
"There is no sense for this allegation and people
who are returning are well supported by humanitarian
organisations," he said. "Even people who
inform the UN are not always right," he added.

President Museveni visited Mpondwe on the border with
Zaire yesterday and warned that Ugandan troops would
follow rebels into Zaire if they attacked Uganda again.
"If the rebels dared to attack the country again,
they will be crushed and followed up to their bases,"
he told journalists, according to the New Vision paper
today. A BBC journalist in the area said there were
signs of a big battle - houses were empty and there
were no civilians on the street. Displaced people
were gradually returning to Mpondwe from Kasese. The
Ugandan government, meanwhile, said it would soon send
a delegation to Kinshasha, according to Ugandan press
reports. The talks will discuss flushing out "the
Zairean-backed rebel group" that raided the western
district of Kasese last week capturing a series of
towns. Foreign Affairs Minister, Eriya Kategaya told
diplomats in Kasese on Wednesday that Uganda had already
contacted Kinshasa over the issue. Some twenty diplomats
were given a tour of the re-captured towns and told
that Uganda wanted to solve the problem diplomatically.
"There is no doubt that the rebels are in Zaire
and could strike again," Kategaya said.

Nairobi, November 22 1996, 15:50 GMT [ENDS]

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